The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

18 Easy Steps to Becoming a Writer

One thing many people ask me is: How? How do I become a writer? Well, I’m here to answer that question once and for all. Keep in mind this applies equally well to deciding you’re going to write a short story or deciding you’re going to write a novel. Heck, it even applies to scholarly or work-related writing.

Step Two: Decide it’s going to be brilliant. Imagine the response of your [teacher, classmates, reading group, agent] and how it will completely change the way they look at you.

Step Three: Open up Microsoft Word.

Step Four: Stare at the blank white screen stretching on into infinity until your eyes begin to burn and your brain hurts from the sheer emptiness of it all.

Step Five: Check your e-mail. If writing a novel, research agents for a couple of hours.
Step Six: Stare at the blank Word document again.

Step Seven: Realize you need music. Spend the next hour finding the perfect “mood” music for what you want to write.

Step Eight: Inspired by [insert perfect music here], click back over to Word document.

Step Nine: Change Facebook status to: [Your name here] is WRITING!!! Realize you aren’t on Twitter, and that anyone who is anyone is networking/wasting time on Twitter. Sign up for an account and spend the next two hours figuring out how it works and what the crap # means.

Step Ten: Stare at blank Word document. Decide you need a title. Brainstorm for the next hour.

Step Eleven: Come up with a GENIUS title. Proudly type “The Scent of Green Papayas” at the top of the document, followed by your name. Happily consider how easily a story will come now that you have such an amazing, literary title.

Step Twelve: Take a four-hour break for snacks and naptime.

Step Thirteen: Refreshed, sit down and toy around with pen names for a while.

Step Fourteen: Realize to your horror that your genius title is actually the name of a Vietnamese foreign film you saw seven years ago.

Why do we say that, when all we have done is blog for 8 years, including poetry, humor, opinion, exposes, and other fun stuff, to tiny, but appreciative, audiences?

What IS blogging if not a form of writing?

Maybe it will all lead to something that pays, someday, who knows?

Anyway, I liked your post, and after I tell Daddy about it, so HE can read it, I’m gonna go take a nap.

Have a great evening! ;-D

Nikita Cat

Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat

Proud Pussy Pundit Since 2002!

Offishul Repurrter of The Cat Blogosphere Website

Professor of the Nikita Institute of Pussydom Studies (NIPS)
The Most Opinionated Pussycat in America, with Talent on Loan from The Ceiling Cat

MOTTO: You Giva Me No Trouble – I Giva You No Smack!

Creative writing, photos, experiences, observations, & opinions, on life, & the world around him, by an outspoken ManCat (Born 1998) taking one step at a time on the Journey of Discovery, & Enlightenment, that comes with having 9 Lives to work with.

Step Nineteen: Realize that if writing is really that difficult for you, you should just give up now and stop torturing yourself. Seriously, if you go through all that and still haven’t managed to write a single word, find a different hobby/career.

UPCOMING BOOT CAMP

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